With Rick Perry taking the lead in the Republican primary, tort reform is expected to be, again, a major campaign issue. I have long been a critic of efforts to cap damages and I have seen firsthand how these caps often lead to families being unable to secure counsel in fights with big companies. Now, Perry is claiming that his “reforms” have led to 21,000 more doctors coming to Texas. The article below shows how this claim is entirely unsupported.
At the Politics and Eggs Breakfast in Bedford, N.H., on Aug. 17, 2011, Perry claimed huge success in malpractice limits: “I’ll tell you what one of the results was. This last year, 21,000 more physicians practicing medicine in Texas because they know they can do what they love and not be sued. Some 30 counties that didn’t have an emergency room doc have one today. Counties along the Rio Grande, where women were having to travel for miles and miles outside of the county to see an ob-gyn, for prenatal care and now they have that care.”
However, the actual increase was 12,788. Moreover, the biggest drivers appears population growth: “From 2002 to 2010, the population of Texas grew by 20 percent. At the same time, the number of doctors went up 24 percent.”
The bar needs to be more proactive in dealing with the costs of limits on malpractice and other types of recovery. I once helped a student who was seeking an attorney to sue a trucking company in Kansas for a horrific accident where his fiance was killed. No attorney would touch it due to caps on recovery. It would simply be too expensive to litigate as a contingency case. The result is that families are forced to accept a couple hundred thousand dollars for the death of their loved one. It makes such people a relatively cheap cost of doing business.
As we saw in the Virginia Tech case, the university was clearly and grossly negligent. Yet, those families were limited to $100,000 each in a ridiculous cap on damages. Not only did the university avoid the full damages for its negligence, it has used the tragedy to raise a great deal of money. I continue to get calls incessantly on my phone by fundraisers from the university despite asking them to stop calling.
It is time to have a full and accurate debate on this issue, but it is not going to happen with bar groups remaining timid and passive.
Jonathan Turley
Source: Politifact
Any politician who uses malpractice “caps” as a campaign issue is basically saying he has his hand out for campaign funding from the medical industry.
Frivolous lawsuits should be handled by the Judiciary and bar associations.
The Corporatists who run our country hate malpractice, because it eats into their bottom line, even if the cause is justified.
The best effort is being put forth to help Perry if hes the nominee to get elected or whoever comes out on top in field.
Arizona sues over key provision of Civil Rights Act
By Bill Mears, CNN Supreme Court Producer
August 25, 2011 7:11 p.m. EDT
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/08/25/arizona.civil.rights.act/
Frankly: Yes the control was in place by getting the case dismissed. My point is there should be a proactive control that would make a lawyer think twice about bringing a totally frivolous case such as that. IMHO, that lawyer should have been sanctioned (did not happen) and made to pay the expenses of defending the worthless case (did not happen). The lawyer had hoped we would settle the case for nuisance value and get a cheap payday (did not happen). In the meantime, I was out a huge chunk of time, but fortunately I was well covered with insurance and they provided me with a good law firm who would not entertain the idea of settling. All too often, insurance companies settle worthless cases out of court just to stop bleeding Benjamins.
Ok, Carol, you answered the questions…You agreed to accept…You accepted….This was verbally communicated to the other side…You tanked your own case….
Look, I am trained in the Trial Room…better talker than writer…You did not know what to do…You fumbled it…by not calling your own expert to the stand…Did you testify before you rested your case…What were your damages….What was your proof…Did you have an medical economist as an expert to detail damages that you suffered…
If all you had was the Doc and Docs depo…Ok, so he’s a liar….The Judge could see the evidence…It probably was not personal….but, most Pro Se litigants make it personal….at one point in my career…I asked the Judge on the record if I could pay for an attorney for a opposition Pro Se Litigant…why….because, they were not very good…
FYI,….If you ever need a criminal case reviewed…get someone that has been in the Prison System a long time….they are they best help a Criminal defense attorney could ever want…They live this stuff 24/7 for years…They know the system inside and out….They have a vested interest in knowing the system…not only the legal system…but the prison system…..
SWM,
Bill White is a very good person…If I was registered to vote here I would have voted for him….The problem in the west side of the state is they think a limited government is the best….Now that they are having to pay out of pocket….or drive the kids to school…they may take a different approach….
Where I am at….They have a Home Owners Fees that basically is a Tax….They can levy your property and sell it from under you if you do not pay..The Increase request failed…I was not disappointed, rationalization it in my mind that these HOAs save the City, county and state Code Enforcement Officers time as they are supposed to make sure everyone is in compliance….education cuts has always been used with the philosophy that parents will do the right thing and make due with the cuts or raise money for the need….Just like sending your kid to a private boarding school….
Then maybe..just maybe they will get the message….
As a ‘victim’ of med. mal and the legal system, somethinig has to be done. A jury that does not understand the issues is going to, as per another posting from this blog, usually rule for the doctor regardless of the proof. I had perjury on my side plus proof of egregious malpractice, nevertheless my lawyer forced me to settle the suit, specifically against my verbal and written will, telling me ‘you have to accept it because you said you would.” (I told him verbally with follow up letter 3 days after the forcing (a Monday, the 7 phone calls in a 2 1/2 hour period from the lawyer insisting I agree to a settlement wore me down to the point where crying I told the att’y, “just get rid of this. Stop it.” (I have written this elsewhere but interestingly enough 4 weeks after this forced settlement, of a case in the courts for 14 years, the doctor was nominated as Pa Sec’t of Health.)
These cases need to move out of the legal system and the courtroom, maybe a system of arbitration/mediation with the court as a last resort. Some have suggested this system using only doctors as the persons hearing the cases. That would also be a travesty, physicians have shown in way too many cases their thin blue line, refusing to testify even when malpractice is obvious.
Also interesting: there have been studies that show when docs apologize and try to make it better, whatever the damage and ability to fix or even not fix, patients tend to sue less.
I do not have citations as I am on my mobile but I remember a report from GE’s malpractice insurance business (which is the largest in the nation), in states with caps, insurance rates have remained the same because the biggest expense has been long term care not punitive. There are very few large punitive awards compared to the total number of claims. The insurer has mostly pocketed any difference instead of passing the savings onto the insured. In fact, looking in states with caps, health costs have been unaffected by tort reform.
SW – the Republicans have a history recently of preferring ‘the next guy’. They always are looking for the next savior to lead them. Invariably these candidates are perfect and wonderful until they start to run & get some attention. Then their obvious flaws come out & the faithful run seeking the next one. Perry is just another one of those at this moment. There is still a lot of talk about Daniels, Christie and even Pataki fro crying out loud. Its months until an actual vote is cast & we have not heard from Fred Thompson yet 🙂
OS, it seems to me that your story demonstrates a control already in place.
eniobob. Perry’s approval rating is so high among republican voters that I think he will be the nominee unless he screws up somehow.
By DAN FUTRELL | 8/25/11 4:30 AM EDT
Texas Gov. Rick Perry recently asserted in Iowa that one reason he entered the GOP presidential race is to “make sure that every young man and woman who puts on the uniform of the United States respects highly the president of the United States.” He was clearly implying that our current commander in chief does not have, or deserve, this respect from our active duty, reserve and veteran military community.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/62006.html#ixzz1W8rmsbj3
If true reform is going to be in place for medical malpractice, it needs to be written carefully in order to discourage frivolous lawsuits, but a truly injured patient can be made whole.
When I talk about frivolous, I am referring to things like the instance when an adjudicated child molester tried to sue me because he blamed me for being unable to have unsupervised visitation with his preschool age daughter he had molested. That got tossed with prejudice, but everyone involved in that was amazed he could actually find a lawyer to take his case.
Remember the internal memos over the Ford Pinto and Chevy Corvair? In both cases the management knew they had a product that would kill some number of people because of known design flaws. In both cases they compared the (relatively) cheap cost of fixing the problem to the really cheap cost of litigation and decided they could live with a few thousand unnecessary deaths. Imagine how much shorter these calculations would be if there were known limits no matter how egregious the foul was. I’d agree to tort limits only if and when the boards of these companies, or the individual physicians in this case, can be tried for murder.
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=C668C027-D693-45D5-841F-CCD484C61012 Trial lawyers mobilize against Rick Perry.
I still think Rick Perry is the second coming of Fred Thompson.
Rick Perry and the demons of Fred Thompson and Wesley Clark
By Aaron Blake
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/rick-perry-and-the-demons-of-fred-thompson-and-wesley-clark/2011/08/24/gIQAPcYUcJ_blog.html
AY If you remember I was a Bill White supporter. I had his sign in my yard He is too much of a blue dog for most of the people on this blog but a good guy, nonetheless. The people in Keller voted overwhelmingly for Perry. It is tea party land.
“21,000 more physicians practicing medicine in Texas because they know they can do what they love and not be sued…” Remember when Dubya argued for tort reform so that gynecologists could continue to “share their love” with their patients? Awful lot of loving doctors down in Texas.
subscribe
At one time Michigan was the only state that had caps….The Max on Med Mal was 280K….and catch this the max on product defects is 280K…..anyone want a Pinto….or a Tire….
Yes, Perry is a straight shooter…there are only 7 bullets in his 6 Shooter….I leave the remainder of Perry’s inefficiency to SWM…But one thing that really reeks is Perry’s Budget…especially school….Texas has a 75 or 80 Billion rainy day fund at present…5 billion was added last year after cutting spending at almost every level of government…especially k-12….in some districts they are charging a fortune for school busing…
Keller ISD moves forward with pay-to-ride bus plan
“Walker predicts that two of her sons will need to ride the bus this fall. Under a proposal unveiled Monday, she would have to pay $640 a year for the privilege.”
http://www.wfaa.com/news/education/Keller-ISD-moves-forward-with-pay-to-ride-plan-125786743.html
Never mind that they cut 8 athletic Trainers at the schools at a saving of nearly 1 million a year….
Our state has a one year statute of limitations on medical malpractice. It may sometimes take a year or more for the full import of a botched or incompetent procedure to come to light. By that time the patient is no longer able to recover damages for the injury, but is out the expense of additional medical services to fix the problem.
Malpractice cases are hard enough to prosecute successfully anyway.